In a location-free printing system, a user registers a print job using a client terminal in a server. The user may print the print job registered by the user in any one of image forming apparatuses connected over a network, or may remove the print job from the server. In the location-free printing system, since the user may record a print status of each user in the server, a manager of the system may manage a utilization history of the image forming apparatuses by the user by accessing the server.
In a location-free printing system, even when the image forming apparatus close to the client terminal executes the print job, the user needs to perform user authentication in the image forming apparatus and to perform a selection operation and an execution operation of the print job. When the image forming apparatus is directly connected to the client terminal without the server interposed therebetween, it is possible to perform direct printing. That is, since the client terminal transmits the print job, the image forming apparatus may immediately execute the print job.
However, if the direct printing is permitted in the location-free printing system, the manager of the system still needs to collect the utilization history of the image forming apparatuses. The manager must therefore collect the utilization history of by each user from the server and the plurality of image forming apparatuses. Thus, the management becomes complicated.
For this reason, in the location-free printing system according to the related art, there is a problem that direct printing using the image forming apparatus close to the client terminal is not permitted.